Paranoia
by PSdancer54
Summary: Ginny Weasley is paranoid that a certain black-haired bespectacled boy is watching her in the corridors. Goes through all seven of Harry's school years.


**Author's Note:**

**Hey! So this story is for one of my best friends, Ange. She should be very familiar with some of these events (wink, wink). Happy birthday! Thanks for reading, and as always, reviews are lovely!**

**I do not own Harry Potter or any of its characters. **

Paranoia 

The first time Ginny Weasley ever saw Harry was at King's Cross Station. She didn't know who he was, only that this boy with the greenest eyes she had ever seen was talking to her mother. When she learned that he was going to Hogwarts, she was determined that the two of them would end up being best friends. After Fred and George revealed that he was _the _Harry Potter, she changed her resolution. She would marry him when they grew up.

Of course, she never imagined that Ron would become best friends with the object of her affections. Nor had she ever imagined that Harry would come to the Burrow the summer before she started school. As soon as he arrived, her resolve to "play it cool" died, and she ended up making a fool of herself almost immediately following his arrival. She managed to avoid any more awkward encounters until they arrived at Hogwarts.

She was walking down the corridor after Charms, and Peeves, as usual, had started off a rather loud commotion in the corridors. She ended up trapped behind him as he threw quills at the passing students. Pretty soon, a line of students had formed behind her, but no one wanted to disrupt Peeves in case he decided to turn on the line of students waiting behind him.

It was as Ginny was standing, trapped, that the very boy she strove to avoid came strolling down the corridor. Ron and Hermione were nowhere to be seen, and Ginny felt her blush heat up her cheeks as he ducked a flying quill with ease. As he straightened up, he glanced at her, recognition and confusion dawning on his face. She knew how the situation must look; a long line of students unwillingly trapped behind Peeves, her, blushing at the head of the line. She averted her eyes, looking at the floor, the flying quills, the walls, anything but at the black haired boy in front of her.

Peeved threw another well-aimed quill, and Harry took off down the corridor, hands protecting his face. The second that Peeves left, Ginny took to her dormitory, pouring out the event to Tom.

_Are you sure that he was looking at you, and not at Peeves?_ The diary had written back to her.

_Yes. Maybe. I don't know, Tom!_

_Maybe he didn't even see you there and was just wondering why everyone was trapped behind the poltergeist? _

That night, Ginny lay in bed, paralyzed with paranoia. Had Harry been looking at her? Or was he only watching Peeves, warily awaiting another quill to fly in his direction. Had she been too obvious, blushing like that and avoiding his gaze?

* * *

The next year, Ginny didn't have Tom to confide in any more. Part of her was relieved that the possession and attacks had stopped, but another part was sad at the loss of a friend, however villainous he turned out to be. She soon made friends in her year, and spent much of her second year sitting in the common room, laughing with her new mates.

One particular time, as she giggled and laughed, she noticed Harry, Ron, and Hermione sitting at a table near the window, scanning large books. She knew that they were trying to help Hagrid and Buckbeak, and a part of her wished that she could go over and help them. But she still wasn't ready to talk to Harry like that, so she remained with her own friends, her mind a bit more preoccupied.

She couldn't help, though, glancing at the trio every so often, as thoughts of axes and executioners filled her mind. A few times, she was certain that she had seen a flash of sun glinting off of metal glasses, as she glanced at the three students out of the corner of her eye. Soon after, she found a pattern, where she was certain that as she turned her head to look at Harry, he was turning his head to look back down at his book.

_Was he looking at me? Or just out the window? But the window's to his left, and I'm to his right. Maybe he was just glancing at the wall, deep in thought. But then why would he turn his head if he saw me looking over there? Maybe he was just bored and was watching the other students? And he was just looking back at his book so that Hermione wouldn't yell? But that doesn't make sense either, because Ron is just sitting there eating jellybeans, the great pig. She's not doing anything to Ron. And why does it look like he's particularly glancing at my friends and I? _

And Ginny was wracked with a sense of paranoia so great, that she stopped listening to her friends, and Abigail, a first year she had gotten to know, had to shake her shoulder several times just to tell her that it was time for bed.

It was times like these that she missed Tom, because even if he was evil, he was at least someone she could confide in, someone she could trust with her secrets.

* * *

In her third year, as she was sitting in the common room checking over a potion essay, Neville came over and asked her to the Yule Ball. She said yes, of course, before learning that he only asked her because everyone else he had asked had said no. She didn't mind, though, because otherwise she would not have gotten to go, and Neville was a sort of friend to her. And, of course, Harry would be going.

About halfway through the dancing, she noticed Harry sitting moodily next to a grumpy Ron. He glanced in her direction, and she caught a flash of green before Neville had turned her around again. A few minutes later, she excused herself to get punch, and had to fight to control the urge to limp.

Over at the punch bowl, she met a boy named Michael Corner, from Ravenclaw. Ginny was polite and nice, and then she could have sworn that she saw a familiar messy-haired boy glance at her before Michael resumed talking to her.

All of a sudden, Hermione's advice about giving up on Harry came back. Hermione had told her earlier that if she stopped her little crush, it might be easier to talk to him, and then they could become friends. Of course, Ginny would _never_ give up on Harry. But maybe, just maybe, she would be able to talk to him easier. And then, he would see the real her. And then, it may lead to something else.

So she continued talking to Michael, and she could have sworn that she felt Harry's eyes on her. But instead of giving in to her paranoia, she kept talking, and the feeling faded away.

* * *

In her fourth year, the DA was set up, and she saw Harry weekly at both meetings and Quidditch practices. She was much happier now, because she could actually talk to him without acting like her eleven-year-old self all over again.

Except, she could have sworn that Harry was watching her during the DA meetings. She would turn around warily, but he wouldn't be looking in her direction. Yet, she could still feel his eyes. She was positive that he was watching her, yet she could not find proof of this.

One day, as she was walking through the corridors with Michael, she definitely saw him glance her way. She wasn't sure if the glance was directed at her, or Michael's arm around her shoulders, but she knew for sure that he had looked at her. And the thought made her happy for days.

At the next DA meeting, she felt his eyes on her back again, and it gave her the strength she needed to successfully conjure her Patronus. As she watched the horse gallop around her, she thought about how much a horse was similar to a stag. So when Michael acted like a jerk when Ravenclaw lost the match, she broke up with him without a moment's hesitation.

As she wandered the corridors with Luna, she would often pass Harry. But not once did her ever look her way. She was wracked with crippling paranoia for days.

_What if he doesn't like me anymore? Nonsense, he talks to me during Quidditch practice and DA meetings. But why doesn't he even look at me in the hallways anymore? I thought that he was jealous of Michael. I guess not, because he doesn't seem to be acting on that jealousy at all! In fact, I heard he's dating Cho Chang now! _

So a couple of weeks before term ended, when Dean Thomas asked her out, she said yes.

* * *

At the end of her fifth year, she no longer felt paranoid when she felt Harry Potter's eyes on her. She would turn around, and he would not avert his gaze, but calmly meet her hazel eyes. And she was happy, happier than she had ever been before, and the end of her term was gloriously happy, until Dumbledore died.

Although his death was tragic, the aftermath was what really broke her. That fateful talk with Harry, when he told her that they couldn't date, that was what made her heart break. She did not cry in front of him though. She wanted to be strong for him, because she could see how upset the situation also made him. She waited until she was in her dormitory before she let the floodgates open. Hermione came to comfort her, but Ginny made Hermione swear not to mention it to Harry.

And then, it was back to the beginning of the year, when he would stare at her all the time, but move his eyes elsewhere the second she turned her head. But still, she was not paranoid, because she knew now; she knew how he truly felt about her.

One day, she was sitting in the Great Hall with Ron and Hermione, eating breakfast when she felt him next to her. She was sitting on the end of the bench, and he wormed his way in between her and Neville, saying, "Budge over there, Weasley".

She fell of the bench, onto the floor, and was so utterly shocked for a moment until she saw his face grinning down at her. A fork clattered to the floor, and he leaned his head lower to pick it up, managing to brush a kiss onto her forehead in the process.

And that made her mad, extremely mad.

_How dare he? How dare he break it off and then do that? I thought that we were making a clean break, not a messy one where he can still kiss me whenever he wants. _

So she straightened up, saying, "Nice, real nice, Potter. You are such an extremely classy bloke," before she turned to leave.

But he caught her hand, and forced her to turn back to him. He moved over on the bench, making room for her and pulled her down so that she was almost sitting on his lap. As he turned his head to continue eating, he pressed a stray kiss somewhere near her ear. She could see Ron's ears start to turn red, but she only felt a cold sense of dread.

_Who else could have seen? Who else could have seen that is a threat?_

As Ginny ran though students and professors in her mind, the cold fingers of paranoia made their return. She did not register the fact that Harry's hand was still clamped tightly around her wrist; nor did she see the students getting up to leave. It was only when Luna came over, pried Harry's hand away, and led her out of the Great Hall, that Ginny fully became aware of herself again.

That night she cried. She cried for the relationship that they had barely started, and the love that they had lost. She cried because she knew that next year would be torture, always wondering if he was dead. She cried because she knew that now paranoia would never fully leave her.

* * *

Her sixth year, Ginny Weasley was constantly paranoid. She almost always felt eyes on her, watching her. But they were never the green eyes that she desperately wanted to see. They belonged to classmates, watching to see if she did anything to upset the professors again. The eyes belonged to her friends, warily waiting for her to crack completely and break down from the pressure. Two pairs of beady eyes belonged to the Carrows, who also listened to her conversations, to see if she would reveal something about Harry.

She walked around the hallways, paranoid that one day, Harry would be captured. That one day, he would die. And she knew that if that happened, she wouldn't be able to live. She walked around; paranoid that the Carrows would actually kill a student, and that it would be a member of the DA, and that the violence would not end there.

But she knew that being careful, and being paranoid would not help Harry. So she did her best to squelch the feelings of doubt, and to focus on doing something to help Harry and to help the Order. She boosted morale among her fellow students, and she took part in small acts of rebellion against the death eaters running the school. And she was happy that she could help the right cause for the war. She also felt closer to Harry, knowing that she was doing something to help.

But then that awful night came; the night that people she knew died in brutal and horrible ways. Throughout the whole battle, she prayed that it wouldn't be a family member of Hermione that was the next person struck down dead. She knew that Harry wouldn't die, because he couldn't. If he died, then the world would end. And she knew that he wouldn't let that happen. She also knew that Voldemort would most likely want to kill Harry himself. So she used that fact as a small form of comfort as the battle raged on around her.

And then Fred died, and her whole world came crashing down. But she kept on fighting, because she knew that Harry was still alive and they could still win.

But then Harry died, and she stopped thinking, stopped feeling. She could not comprehend that the boy that she had loved for seven years was dead. And then, all of a sudden, he was alive, and the war resumed as fierce as ever, and she did not have time to think. She could only fight. She could not feel paranoid; she could only avenge Fred's death by taking down as many death eaters as she could. She did not have time to think about Harry, but only to feel the overwhelming sense of relief that he was alive, that he was still fighting.

* * *

A few years later, they were married, and Ginny knew that she would never have to feel paranoid ever again.


End file.
